New Delhi The country’s wasteland declined more than 5 lakh hectare during 2005-2008, a national wasteland atlas released on Wednesday has noted.

The atlas prepared by the National Remote Sensing Centre under the Indian Space Research Organisation has stated that wasteland during 2005-08 declined by 3.2 million hectare while increase in wasteland was to the tune of 2.7 million hectare.

With concerns rising over the increased environmental destruction due to development projects, the state has formulated its first draft of State Action Plan on Climate Change (SAPCC) to integrate climate change into the future policy framework of planners. The draft has been prepared in consultation with IRG Systems South Asia Pvt Ltd to give due consideration to safeguarding the ecology while approving major environmentally fragile projects.

GUWAHATI: For the first time, the Assam Government will use remote sensing technology to tackle the problem of erosion in the State.

Continuous erosion triggered by the Brahmaputra and its tributaries has been gobbling up huge chunks of land in upper Assam districts, rendering thousands of people homeless and disturbing the fragile ecosystem in the region.

Chief minister Tarun Gogoi today released the Flood Hazard Atlas of Assam.
The atlas, a database generated over the past 10 years (1998-2007), provides the spatial extent of flood inundation and frequency of occurrence, that were used to generate the flood hazard maps.

China must clear the air and win India's trust

Having raised the matter of China

Hyderabad, Sept. 27: Climate change is said to be the reason behind the sudden surge in the rainfall and flooding.

MUMBAI: Sting may have famously penned the song 'Every breath you take, every move you make...I'll be watching you' in the 1980s, but it's Mumbai's town planners who are humming the tune now.

Tightening the noose around illegal miners, specialised inspection squads today began a fresh drive in at least 80 iron ore mines in Karnataka

Satellite data and geographical information system (GIS) should be applied to locate the groundwater zones for the purpose of harnessing this resource to meet the drinking water demand of the people. This was the observation made by Dr S K Subramanian, Head of the Hydrology Division of the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) of the Indian Space Research Organisation here today.

A day after the National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA) confirmed that construction was on at the Zangmu site on the Chinese side of the Brahmaputra river, Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao on Wednesday said that New Delhi has many a time raised the issue of construction of a dam by China on the Brahmaputra river but Beijing has consistently denied any such activity.